A review by julieyue
The Parisian by Isabella Hammad

1.0

Did not finish -- full of serious technical problems of characterization, motivation, scale, and, frankly, even genre (apparently a family biography masquerading as a historical novel but fails on both counts, as intimate portrait and as riveting history). A reminder that a train of strong sentences do not a good book make; there were entire pages that lacked clarity about what was actually happening and what/who was important, despite its success at producing atmospheric, seemingly intelligent prose. Perhaps a more canny editor would have steered this story toward the form of an extended personal / historical essay to make use of Hammad's better tendencies. Hopefully Hammad's next book will prove more mature (and shorter? lol) as she seems to be a good stylist; this one was overhyped and disappointing.